Exploring Shakespeare’s Tragedies: Macbeth
February 8, 2025 @ 2:00 PM
Participatory Study Event – Led by Clare Smout (3 hours).
This participatory event explores the story, themes, language and stagings of Shakespeare’s ‘Scottish play’, along with its context as a drama written to please England’s new Stuart king, James I, with his interest in witches, kingship and his own family history.
On receiving a prophesy that he will become king, the successful general Macbeth and his wife react by using murder to ensure the prediction comes true. However, they find that one murder leads to others and that witches are not always to be trusted. A play about fate and free will, ambition and ambiguity, marriage and murder.
The session starts with an introductory talk, followed by group discussion and video clips from a variety of productions. A break is included midway for coffee and cake.
These events are suitable for those aged 18 and over.
Clare Smout is a locally-based Shakespeare specialist. Clare spent 20 years in professional theatre, before moving sideways into academic research and teaching. She has taught Shakespeare to students of all ages, including lecturing at the University of Birmingham and as a guest tutor at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Continuing Education.
This is part of a series of five sessions on Exploring Shakespeare’s Tragedies. These are stand-alone sessions. Come to as many or as few as you wish.
- Sat 26 October 2pm-5pm Introducing Elizabethan Tragedy + Titus Andronicus
- Sat 2 November 2pm-5pm Introducing Elizabethan Tragedy + Titus Andronicus (repeat)
- Sat 16 November 2pm-5pm Shakespeare’s Early Language + Romeo and Juliet
- Sat 23 November 2pm-5pm Shakespeare’s Early Language + Romeo and Juliet (repeat)
- Sat 11 January 2pm-5pm Exploring Othello
- Ist or 2nd of February (tbc) 2pm-5pm Exploring Othello (repeat)
- Sat 8 February 2pm-5pm Exploring Macbeth
- Sun 16 February 2pm-5pm Exploring Macbeth (repeat)
- Sat 8 March 10am-5pm Exploring King Lear
- 29th or 30th March (tbc) 10am-5pm Exploring King Lear (repeat)
The publicity image shows Bob Frazer as Macbeth in the Bard on the Beach production, photographed by David Blue (Creative Commons)
